Asthma ; drug therapy ; mortality ; Cost of Illness ; Humans ; Patient Admission ; trends ; Singapore ; epidemiology

The last 15 years have seen changing patterns of injury in emergency surgery and trauma patients. The ability to diagnose, treat and manage these patients nonoperatively has led to a decline in interest in trauma surgery as a career. In addition, healthcare systems face multiple challenges, including limited resources, an ageing population and increasing subspecialisation of medical care, while maintaining government-directed standards and managing public expectations. In the West, these challenges have led to the emergence of a new subspecialty, 'acute care surgery', with some models of care providing dedicated acute surgical units or separating acute and elective streams with the existing manpower resources. The outcomes for emergency surgery patients and efficiency gains are promising. In Singapore, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital has implemented its first dedicated acute surgical unit. This article outlines the evolution of acute care surgery and its relevance to Asia.
Critical Care ; trends ; Emergency Medicine ; trends ; Health Plan Implementation ; Health Services Research ; Hospitals ; Humans ; Models, Organizational ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Patient Admission ; Physicians ; Singapore ; Trauma Centers ; organization & administration ; Wounds and Injuries ; surgery

INTRODUCTION: We evaluated the impact of public health measures on paediatric emergency department attendances during the COVID-19 and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreaks in Singapore. METHODS: Between 1 January 2020 and 31 July 2020, we retrospectively reviewed paediatric emergency department attendances and admissions in a tertiary paediatric hospital in Singapore before and after a national lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19 in Singapore. Hospital attendances and admissions were compared with data from a corresponding period in 2019 (1 January 2019 to 31 July 2019), as well as during and after the SARS outbreak (1 January 2003 to 31 December 2004). RESULTS: Compared with a corresponding non-outbreak period, emergency department attendances decreased in line with nationwide public health measures during the COVID-19 and SARS outbreaks (2020 and 2003 respectively), before increasing gradually following lifting of restrictions, albeit not to recorded levels before these outbreaks. During the COVID-19 outbreak, mean daily attendances decreased by 40%, from 458 per day in January-July 2019, to 274 per day in January-July 2020. The absolute number of hospital inpatient admissions decreased by 37% from January-July 2019 (19,629) to January-July 2020 (12,304). The proportion of emergency department attendances requiring admission remained similar: 20% in January-July 2019 and 21% in January-July 2020. CONCLUSION Nationwide public health measures in Singapore have had an impact on paediatric emergency department attendances and hospital inpatient admissions. Data from this study could inform planning and resource allocation for emergency departments in Singapore and internationally.
Adolescent ; COVID-19/prevention & control* ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Disease Outbreaks ; Emergency Service, Hospital/trends* ; Facilities and Services Utilization/trends* ; Female ; Health Policy ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Patient Acceptance of Health Care/statistics & numerical data* ; Patient Admission/trends* ; Pediatrics ; Retrospective Studies ; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome/epidemiology* ; Singapore/epidemiology*

OBJECTIVES: There have been few studies examining the differences in health care utilization across social classes during the last year of life. Therefore, in this study we analyzed the quantitative and qualitative differences in health care utilization among cancer patients across educational classes in their last year of life, and derived from it implications for policy. METHODS: To evaluate health care utilization by cancer patients in the last year of life, Death certificate data from 2004 were merged with National Health Insurance data (n=60,088). In order to use educational level as a social class index, we selected the individuals aged 40 and over as study subjects (n=57,484). We analyzed the differences in the medical expenditures, admission days, and rates of admission experience across educational classes descriptively. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between medical expenditures and independent variables such as sex, age, education class, site of death and type of cancer. RESULTS: The upper educational class spent much more on medical expenditures in the last one year of life, particularly during the last month of life, than the lower educational class did. The ratio of monthly medical expenditures per capita between the college class and no education class was 2.5 in the last 6-12 months of life, but the ratio was 1.6 in the last 1 month. Also, the lower the educational class, the higher the proportion of medical expenditures during the last one month of life, compared to total medical expenditures in the last one year of life. The college educational class had a much higher rate of admission experiences in tertiary hospitals within Seoul than the other education classes did. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the lower educational classes had qualitative and quantitative disadvantages in utilizing health care services for cancer in the last year of life.
Terminal Care/economics/*utilization ; *Social Class ; Patient Admission/statistics & numerical data ; *Neoplasms/economics/epidemiology/therapy ; Middle Aged ; Male ; Korea/epidemiology ; Humans ; Health Services/economics/*utilization ; Health Expenditures/*statistics & numerical data/trends ; Educational Status ; Death Certificates ; Aged ; Adult

INTRODUCTIONLittle data is available on community hospital admissions. We examined the differences between community hospitals and the annual trends in sociodemographic characteristics of all patient admissions in Singaporean community hospitals over a 10- year period from 1996 to 2005.

MATERIALS AND METHODSData were manually extracted from medical records of 4 community hospitals existent in Singapore from 1996 to 2005. Nineteen thousand and three hundred and sixty patient records were examined. Chisquare test was used for univariate analysis of categorical variables by type of community hospitals. For annual trends, test for linear by linear association was used. ANOVA was used to generate beta coefficients for continuous variables.

RESULTSMean age of all patient admissions has increased from 72.8 years in 1996 to 74.8 years in 2005. The majority was Chinese (88.4%), and female (58.1%) and admissions were mainly for rehabilitation (88.0%). Almost one third had foreign domestic workers as primary caregivers and most (73.5%) were discharged to their own home. There were significant differences in socio-demographic profile of admissions between hospitals with one hospital having more patients with poor social support. Over the 10-year period, the geometric mean length of stay decreased from 29.7 days (95% CI, 6.4 to 138.0) to 26.7 days (95% CI, 7.5 to 94.2), and both mean admission and discharge Barthel Index scores increased from 41.0 (SD = 24.9) and 51.8 (SD = 30.0), respectively in 1996 to 48.4 (SD = 24.5) and 64.2 (SD = 27.3) respectively in 2005.

CONCLUSIONThere are significant differences in socio-demographic characteristics and clinical profile of admissions between various community hospitals and across time. Understanding these differences and trends in admission profiles may help in projecting future healthcare service needs.

Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Analysis of Variance ; Confidence Intervals ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Hospitals, Community ; Humans ; Male ; Medical Records ; statistics & numerical data ; Middle Aged ; Odds Ratio ; Patient Admission ; statistics & numerical data ; trends ; Singapore ; Social Class